Vincent Di Fate’s cover for our June issue illustrates “The Anunnaki Legacy,” a far-ranging adventure by relative newcomer Bond Elam. What do you do if you’re a long way into a quest so big, for a goal based on evidence so tenuous, that you don’t even know whether the agencies supporting you still really do? And what if you then find that what you were looking for is not what you thought it was, but something even stranger? Then your response can’t be what you thought it would be. . . .
Linguist Henry Honken is back with another article about an aspect of human linguistics that’s likely to stretch your thinking about what alien—and even future human—languages might be like. It’s called “Der Mann, Die Frau, Das Kind,” and if you think your high school classes in German or Latin gave you a good idea of what gender means in linguistics, think again—they probably just scratched the surface!
And, of course, we have a diverse array of stories by such writers as Jerry Oltion (with Elton Elliott), Kyle Kirkland, Edward M. Lerner, and Michael F. Flynn.

analog is up in space! chosen for the libraryon the international space station.

Travelers in distress need help—and they need to consider all the options about how to get it. . . .

You have nothing to say about it!” Superintendent Cantrell snarled. “When my ships get here, we’re going to start digging whether you like it or not, you got me?” He glared across the conference room table at Liz, his lips a bloodless smear through the gray stubble bristling from his chin.

Ensign Elizabeth McBride’s eyes narrowed to burning green slits. She would have liked nothing better than to grab the superintendent by his scrawny chicken’s neck and shake him within an inch of his miserable life. But newly commissioned science officers didn’t grab mining superintendents by the neck. No matter how much shaking they needed. Not on their first missions, they didn’t. Not if they ever wanted a second.
“Advocate Lassiter,” she said, turning to the balding, heavily jowled man who sat patiently listening to them from the head of the table. “I fully appreciate the superintendent’s concerns, but this is our first chance to pick up the Anunnaki’s trail in more than a generation. We need time on the surface. Time to explore and gather data. Once the superintendent’s ships start cutting away Slag’s core, any artifacts the Anunnaki left behind will be lost forever.”